3.23.2018

Hands-off Editing in The New York Times

Print journalism is often thrown together hastily and unintended wordplay is sometimes the result.

In today’s New York Times there is a story headlined Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash in which the following passage appears:

A video shot from the vehicle’s dashboard camera showed the safety driver looking down, away from the road. It also appeared that the driver’s hands were not hovering above the steering wheel, which is what drivers are instructed to do so they can quickly retake control of the car.

Then just two paragraphs later:

Unlike California, where Uber had been testing since spring of 2017, Arizona state officials had taken a hands-off approach to autonomous vehicles and did not require companies to disclose how their cars were performing.

Or is it possible that the reporter is making a deliberate play on words?